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Google is killing the open web, part 2

(wok.oblomov.eu)
418 points akagusu | 1 comments | 17 Nov 25 15:41 UTC | HN request time: 2.77s | source
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charcircuit ◴[17 Nov 25 17:13 UTC] No.45955632[source]▶
>Mozilla bent over to Google's pressure to kill off RSS by removing the “Live Bookmarks” features from the browser

They both were just responding to similar market demands because end users didn't want to use RSS. Users want to use social media instead.

>This is a trillion-dollar ad company who has been actively destroying the open web for over a decade

Google has both done more for and invested more into progressing the open web than anyone else.

>The WHATWG aim is to turn the Web into an application delivery platform

This is what web developers want and browsers our reacting to the natural demands of developers, who are reacting to demands of users. It was an evolutionary process that got it to that state.

>but with their dependency on the Blink rendering engine, controlled by Google, they won't be able to do anything but cave

Blink is open source and modular. Maintaining a fork is much less effort than the alternative of maintaining a different browser engine.

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Fileformat ◴[17 Nov 25 17:59 UTC] No.45956104[source]▶
I think that "market demands" is a bit of a misnomer. RSS was (and remains) too tech-y for the mainstream.

If browser vendors had made it easy for mainstream users, would there have been as much "market demand"?

Between killing off Google Reader and failing to support RSS/Atom, Google handed social media to Facebook et al.

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glenstein ◴[17 Nov 25 18:15 UTC] No.45956261[source]▶
Exactly, those changes which I believe were done at the time to create space for Google Plus (which I think in an alternative reality with some different choices and different execution could very well have been a relevant entrant into the social media space).

It involved driving a steak through the heart of Google reader. Perhaps the most widely used RSS reader on the planet, and ripple effects that led to the de-emphasis of RSS across the internet. Starting the historical timeline after those choices in summarizing it as an absence of market demand overlooks the fact that intentional choices were made on this front to roll it back rather than to emphasize it and make it accessible.

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charcircuit ◴[17 Nov 25 18:25 UTC] No.45956361[source]▶
The writing was already on the wall by the time Google Reader shutdown.

>usage of Google Reader has declined

https://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-goog...

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1. glenstein ◴[17 Nov 25 19:37 UTC] No.45957308[source]▶
I would respectfully disagree in the following sense: I think the choice to shut down Google Reader and deprioritize RSS across the Google ecosystem (including the browser) did more to impact the trajectory of RSS than whatever was already in motion prior to the Reader shutdown.

And the same is true in the other direction, I want RSS to be a success but that would hinge on affirmative choices by major actors in the space choosing to sustain it.